SKT Episode 34: The Ice Giants Cometh!

Starring Avengers Anonymoose:

Matt as Clay The Fighter- I will wait for Abelas to lead us into battle!
Jake as ADDbelas the Wizard – Charge but slightly slower than Clay!
Kraj as Celdar The Misfiring Rogue – Challenge accepted!
Mike as Regulus The Artificer – Er.. Gary, is he still surprised?

With:
Gary as the DM – That’s the kind of thing I would expect from Adam, quite frankly.

Author’s Note: For some reason I felt an urge to add “in your faaaace!” to the title of this episode. Eh, Adam was probably way ahead of me. It should also be noted that all the ‘ice’ strikethroughs in this write up had to be put in by hand. That’s how far your DM will go to pull a minor troll.

That Which Must Be Repeated: This campaign contains hard encounters. It is often not required for all of you to kill all of them in order to succeed!

Season Recap: Chapter 1 – A Great Upheaval

– The party have saved the fortified village of Nightstone from goblins following an attack by Cloud Giants from a floating castle (that went east).

– The characters travelled to Triboar and on the way met a cloud giant called Zephyros who travels in a floating tower. He explained that the Ordning (which regulates giant society) is broken and the players are destined to fix it.

– They helped defend the town of Triboar from a fire giant attack and travelled to Everlund to bring word of the attack to the Harpers there. They were given access to the Harper’s teleportation network.

– They arrived at Goldenfields to find it under attack by Ogres, Bugbears and Goblins. Having fought off the attack they proceeded to seek allies against the giants, a frost giant called Harshnag in particular, and ended up (eventually) in Bryn Shander.

Pre-session Guff

Everyone but Kraj turned up on time. The DM theorised he was ashamed to show his face after the previous evening when Kraj was hosting the epic final mission in Guild Wars 2 and forty minutes into it his potato of a PC died and now he and the DM have to do it all again <sigh>

There were several comments along the lines of “Fucking Kraj!”.

Adam had previously said he couldn’t make it but had then said he could make it but at the last minute decided he couldn’t make it after all. I don’t think I need to say any more about that.

Christina has just moved and unlike some of the sorry excuses offered up recently (I forgot it was Thursday, I’m going to a complete stranger’s wedding, I booked my grocery delivery for D&D time, I nearly died of Covid) she has no Internet.

I’m just going to reiterate again that I really don’t mind if you can’t make it. I fully understand; life can get rather busy and this is for fun and shouldn’t be onerous. I just make a lot out of it because its funny. We started all this nearly 4 years ago and we are still going so that’s a bonus in itself.

Epic games was slated by everyone except Mike for being a total bunch of cunts. Mike likes them because they give him free games he’ll never play.

While still waiting for Kraj to decide if he could be arsed to turn up, we had a brief recap on last week for Mike, mainly the bit about the clockwork gnome.

The DM loads up Tabletop Simulator but the players can’t see it. Chat continues while the DM tries to figure out what he has fucked up:

DM> Right fuck fucking Kraj, he can do one. We’ll treat him like Adam.
Jake> That’s a bit harsh.
Clay> If the offer is there, we’d like to take everyone this week!
<laughter>
DM> On the subject of last week; Matt, I am very sorry for being half asleep and not doing my job properly. Jake should also be really sorry for not knowing what his spells do.
Jake> What the fuck did I do?!
<The DM explains Restrained>
Jake> Oh yeah, the fucking tentacles! I probably should have read the last line…
Matt> It was all for the lols!
<Kraj joins>
DM> Ah! Kraj has joined eventually, three hours late!
Mike> That was a good session Gary, thanks for that!
Matt> What’s the excuse Kraj?
Kraj> I was on a work call and I saw Gary wasn’t online…
<The DM swiftly checks his Steam settings, realises he’s set to ‘Invisible’, facepalms and surreptitiously corrects it>
Kraj> …so I thought maybe he’d shat himself and there was going to be a delayed start.
Jake> That’s brave!
<laughter>
DM> I didn’t actually hear that because I was busy fucking about with something…
Kraj> That’s probably for the best!
<more laughter>
DM> But that’s ok, I’ll catch it in the write-up and I’ll take my vengeance the week after!
Kraj> Hey Tenz! You’re online, imagine that!

Quest Map

Now that DM is visible on Steam his players have a remarkably easier time connecting to TTS. Well, most of them:

Jake> Fucking ‘asset bundle error’?!
<loud laughter>
Jake> What is this shit? I reinstalled TTS!

He still couldn’t see the lights. It now transpires that Jake is hovering over the pink flag on Bryn Shander and complaining he can’t see the light orb. Thing is, green flags signify quests and have light orbs, pink flags signify where the party have visited and do not have them. The DM was ever so slightly very sarcastic about this.

Jake> I definitely still can’t see them… WHAT THE SHIT?! I can right-click them and see the square!
Mike> Maybe your graphics card isn’t powerful enough Jake?
Jake> I will stab you if I ever see you in person!
<laughter>
Kraj> A new computer would fix that.
Jake> <laughing> Oh my <heathen deity> I am sooo angry!
<more laughter>

There was a LOT more fucking about with Steam workshop and there was a LOT more abuse aimed at Jake’s ‘super’ computer and his weedy graphics card that he has fitted to it and isn’t at all triggered by. Good news though, at the end of all that Jake still couldn’t see the lights and so the rest of us can continue to be entertained at his expense.

Sirac of Suzail

The deputies (and Mike) were approached by the cleric that aided in the gate defence, Sirac of Suzail. Sirac confesses that he may know why the ~~ice~~ frost giants attacked; he is the son of Artus Cimber, the man the giants were seeking. His father is in possession of a powerful magic ring called the Ring of Winter that the giants may be seeking.

However, Sirac also reveals that the ring protects its wearer against scrying and fears the giants may have found a way to track Artus’ blood, which means they will mistakenly continue to pursue his son. Sirac has not seen his father in several years and does not know where he is.

As the players move around a lot, Sirac offers to accompany them in the short term with the aim of eventually reaching Waterdeep where his father’s friend, a powerful archmage called Lord Zelarun Roaringhorn resides.

Sirac is a level 8 Twilight Cleric but explains he has taken a vow and may only use violence to defend himself. The adventurers (and Jake) agree to let him tag along.

The DM explains that this is part of the book quests and not something the DM has made up. The DM has however, made him a rather more useful cleric than the one in the book. If you’re taking a healer along, he damn well better be able to heal right? Right.

It was agreed to go to Fireshear and see the lady about the griffon riding training, take the griffons to Luskan and then proceed down the coast road to Waterdeep.

At this point the DM realises he forgot something really quite important and its too late to do now. Oh well, they’ll find out next week… maybe.

Mike tried to cheese the griffon lady knowing about Harshnag <sigh>. Since Harshnag is vital to the main quest, its going to be a bit bloody hard to miss him when he does come along.

Fireshear

Long ago, a meteor strike blasted a crater in the frozen tundra near the coast of the Trackless Sea, shearing away tons of rock and exposing rich veins of copper and silver ore. In the years that followed, miners settled nearby, giving rise to the town of Fireshear. The miners work for a consortium of three allied merchant companies: Hammaver House (based in Mirabar), the Silver Triangle (based in Neverwinter), and the Delvers of Brokenstone (based in Waterdeep). The settlement is made up of squat stone structures that resemble igloos*, their domes good at supporting the weight of snow and deflecting the cold wind. Most homes are dug out of the rock and include deep cellars laden with preserves.
The miners of Fireshear dwell here all year. Ramps carved into the cliffs lead down to the shore, where stone docks protrude into a shallow bay that freezes by late fall and doesn’t thaw until early summer. Fireshear imports most of its food, clothing, and other necessities. Ice fishing is a popular pastime among children, but all able-bodied adults are expected to toil in the mines.
Fireshear is also home to a retired civilar (captain) of Waterdeep’s Griffon Cavalry and a member of the Emerald Enclave named Dasharra Keldabar (female shield dwarf). She lives north of town, in a mostly underground hovel on a ridge that overlooks the sea. Dasharra raises griffons, trains them as mounts, and teaches people how to ride them. The griffons are kept in a low, sturdy wooden shelter next to her home. Dasharra employs six Zhentarim mercenaries as guards, three of whom stand watch outside the griffon pens while the others rest in a cramped loft above the griffons’ stalls.

*They are orange because that’s the colour of the only tiles the DM could find in Talespire that could make anything remotely resembling an igloo.

One of the adventurers (and Jake) are members of the Emerald Enclave and Dasharra offers to train the party for free. The training will take three days and on completion the players will be adept in the care and riding of griffons.

Dasharra has several outposts, including in most major civilisation centres where they can hire griffins for travel. The business is expanding as fast as she can raise and train the creatures.

Amazingly, because the DM had a long hard think about it and decided to ‘wing it’ and put Harshnag in a bit earlier than he meant to, Dasharra did know something about Harshnag and said he had been spotted in the area recently. Harshnag’s main hobby is killing other ~~ice~~ frost giants and there are a lot of them about in this area recently. Whilst an out of sorts DM winging it may be a recipe for disaster, this is actually a really good time to introduce the famous ~~ice~~ frost giant.

There May be Trouble Ahead!

On the third day of their training a commotion and sounds of violence are heard coming from the town!

Regulus> CHARGE!
ADDbelas> Charge?
Regulus> Yeah!
ADDbelas> But charge slightly slower than Clay!

The banter that took place during the multiple loading up of Talespire covered the following:

– Jake complaining that TTS crashed on him.
– The DM pointing out that’s because he closed it as we were moving to Talespire.
– Jake being abused some more for not listening (The DM cut out apparently)
– Jake’s supercomputer being abused for not having booted Talespire in three seconds.
– Which of the DM or Kraj were more salty about Kraj’s computer crashing in the final Guild Wars 2 mission the night before.
– Whether or not they should take Elvira. They did.
– Whether or not they should take Joffrey. They did not.
– Matt wanted to play Joffrey but the DM promised Matt he would give him something much better to play with before the end of the map.

Matt> Ok, it’s just I expect to be unconscious before the end of the second round.
<laughter>

DM> As you enter the map, a woman runs screaming past you, incoherently babbling about ~~ice~~ frost giants. And then, a whole gaggle of GNOMES runs up shouting “Save us! Save us metal man! The ~~ice~~ frost giants are attacking! They are pillaging the town”.
Regulus> Hmm. I’m finding it hard to motivate…

Regulus very reluctantly agrees to save them and Matt thinks they travelled nearly 150miles to get here and then spent three days training without having taken a long rest <sigh>. “Oh, I must have missed that bit!”.

Attention to Detail

We have three elf minis; Elvira, Celdar and Abelas. They are placed next to each other at the map entrance along with Clay, Regulus and Siric.

Jake accepts the DM’s offer of a change of mini to one recently released. In order to properlty replace a player mini in Talespire the DM has to do the following:

– Place the new mini on the board.
– Right click the old mini and select ‘Make not unique’
– Right click it again and ‘Kill Menu’ and then ‘Kill Creature’ to remove it from the board.
– Rename the new mini Abelas and make it a unique creature.

Perfectly simple procedure right? Should take about 20 seconds tops right? Absolutely nothing can go wrong, right?

It immediately went wrong, obviously.

It was group effort too!

So, with the aid of OBS and several slow-mo replays, this is exactly what a bunch of highly trained and experienced professionals whose job descriptions pretty much encapsulate the words ‘Attention to detail’ managed to do:

– The DM starts by completely forgetting to make the old Abelas ‘not unique’.

– The DM then mistakenly kills off Celdar instead of Abelas because all elves look alike <Must have been a subconscious thing. Well I guess that answers the ‘who is more salty’ question at least>.

– Captain Observant and The Detective both said “You’ve killed Elvira”.

– The DM, who hadn’t yet realised he had killed Celdar, and was looking right at Elvira said, somewhat testily, “You fuckers need to get your eyes checked”

– The DM realises he hasn’t made the original Abelas ‘not unique’ but, believing he has just deleted the original Abelas, places a new Abelas so he can right click it to make the change.

– Placing a new Abelas automatically deletes the old one. The DM doesn’t notice this and is now convinced that he must have previously correctly deleted Abelas as the original Abelas is no longer on the table. Confirmation bias is as much of a bitch as Karma is.

– Captain Observant and The Detective are adamant that the DM has killed Elvira.

– Jake and the DM both insist Elvira is still on the table.

– Mike starts reading out the mini-names he can see “Nope, Ive got Human Caster, Clay, Sirac… oh, no Elvira is there!”

– Mike is certain someone disappeared from behind Clay (he is right, they did it was Celdar).

– Jake is certain that was original Abelas (he is also right but that was after Celdar got disappeared).

– Briefly there were two Abelases on the table. Several people were quite upset about this, one is quite clearly more than enough.

– During all this it transpires that Captain Observant cannot see the grid squares on the map.

– The DM finally gets the unique mini situation sorted and we can get on with the session.

– No one at all has noticed that the Celdar mini is not on the board <sigh>

All of that took 7 minutes and the DM would like to thank everyone involved for making it possible.

Something is Missing…

The DM is a little worried about this fight as the party nearly got creamed by three ~~ice~~ frost giants last session and there’s a few more than that on this map, although they are spread out… mostly. As there are plenty of giants to go around the DM starts things off gently with a surprise attack opportunity.

As the deputies (and Mike) emerge from the canyon entrance onto the main map they see a ~~ice~~ frost giant nearby menacing a group of townsfolk. It is snowing quite heavily and visibility is somewhat reduced.

The DM points out several areas of the town where they can hear sounds of violence. Over to the west of them, someone is shouting and laughing very loudly.

The DM adds a griffin rider to represent Dasharra who is providing aerial support. Ok, it was a manticore because Talespire hasn’t put in griffins yet but its far from the worst mini-proxy the DM has ever used. Oh, this one flies too!

The DM measured 30ft from the unaware ~~ice~~ frost giant and placed some markers down and then invited his players to relocate themselves where they wanted as long as it was to the right of the markers “Please adjust yourselves as you see fit”.

Kraj> There’s something missing from the map…
<The DM notices and quickly slaps a Celdar mini down at the back>
Kraj> You know that elf mini you deleted? That was me!
<laughter>
DM> <casually> Don’t know what you’re on about.
Mike> <who saw what the DM did> Yeah, seems fine.
DM> You’re right there, what’s wrong with you?
Mike> Can you not see that Kraj?
Jake> Wait, wot?!

I would apologise to Kraj but A) I wouldn’t mean it and B) He wouldn’t believe me even if I did mean it and C) Even if I did say I meant it, I still wouldn’t.

Roll initiative!

Surprise Mother<expletive deleted>!

DM> Abelas?
Abelas> <sigh> Two.
<sniggers>

Dasharra, Elvira, Clay and Celdar kick off proceedings with ranged weapon attacks. Celdar missed, obviously. Must have been the missing grid squares. Abelas missed with his Firebolt too.

Regulus, of the stupidly high AC, punches the giant and hits. Now the giant has disadvantage if it attacks anyone but Regulus.

DM> The giant attacks Regulus and launches two greataxe attacks…
<The DM rolls an 11 and 18>
<Worried noises occur>
DM> And then… he realises that he is surprised and the didn’t hit!
<laughter and some abuse>
DM> A little DM troll there!

At this Mike realised that Abelas’ previously piss-poor effort to hit a giant the size of a house should have been made with advantage because of the surprise.

DM> Oh yeah, he’s right, roll it now Jake.
Abelas> Oh, I didn’t realise, I’ll do that…
<Jake rolls a natural 20>
Abelas> …Hey-Zeus Aitch fucking Kerist!
DM> Fuck you! Fuck you Mike! Fuck you!
<laughter>
DM> <adopts his whiny player voice> It’s with advantage!
<more laughter>
DM> No, its fine. After last week the DM has a major guilt-trip going, so its fine.

They have so far managed to do 110 damage to a 138hp giant in one round. My, what a difference a week makes. It’s all down to Elvira, obviously.

The DM has Sirac move up and cast a rather spiffy spell. He proudly reads out the description and gets most of the way through it before he realises he’s actually reading a completely different spell <sigh>.

I thought Adam couldn’t make it?

Mike attacks with Elvira and hits with the first attack but the second goes a tad awry:

Mikevira> Oh no! That actually missed… wait…
<The DM can quite clearly hear what Mike is thinking: “Curving fucking arrow! I can still hit a gnome!”>
Mikevira> <indicating the other ~~ice~~ frost giant in view> Right, is this one within 60ft?
DM thinking> Has he gone completely fucking insane? He has no idea what is stood just beyond it!
DM saying> <remarkably calmly> Are you sure you want to be aggroing another ~~ice~~ frost giant that is not currently in the fight?
Mikevira> Yeah!
DM> That’s the kind of thing I would expect from Adam, quite frankly.
<shocked sounds>
<laughter>

Thankfully Mike manages to shrug off Adam’s remote psychic influence and does not go ‘full Beaver’ and do something spectacularly fucking stupid and incredibly fucking rash.

Celdar steps up to bat, surely he will instil some structure on this round:

Celdar> Right, longbow shot at my matey-boy, hopefully he dies this time…
DM> We are talking about the giant right? And not Regulus… or Abelas?
<Kraj rolls so low the dice added together wouldn’t have hit>
Celdar> Oh for fuck sake!
<laughter>
Celdar> <sigh> Okay… cool.. glad I turned up for this.
DM> The best bit is, if I’d done the thing I meant to do, I could have fixed that for you.
Celdar> Right… so it’s your fault then?!
DM> Yep, pretty much and after last night’s abomination of an end game run, I feel no remorse whatsoever.

Kraj was unimpressed. He’s also missed twice in a row now so good job.

DM> Right, no pressure Clay but its the giant’s turn, he only has 12hp left but does 50 damage if he hits with both axe attacks.
Celdar> <cheerily from way out of melee reach> Or a hundred if he crits again!
Clay> No problem!
Abelas> I get the feeling it is going to be a problem!
<Clay moves up alongside the giant>
Abelas> Er.. not to metagame or anything <Jake obviously goes straight ahead and metagames*> but couldn’t you flank?
Clay> <as if explaining to a five year old> No because then I would need fifteen feet more movement.
Abelas> Sheesh, these people with only thirty feet of movement speed.

*The DM doesn’t actually mind this as its something that could easily be communicated in combat, for example “Flank ~~the fucker~~ him ~~you utter fuck-numpty~~ comrade!”.

Clay does 24 damage with his first attack and flattens the giant.

Somewhere, out in the Kentish darkness, a hooded figure is concentrating on a crystal ball, sending psychic tendrils around the county. It is muttering “Do what Beaver would do!” over and over again. It is the only explanation I have for what is going on tonight.

Clay now wants to attack one of the other giants <sigh>

The DM is going to have to have a long chat with his players about view range next week. If you can just see a giant in the distance, you cannot see what is just beyond the giant, like his 5 mates. That was made up for illustrative purposes only, there’s no way the Storm King’s Thunder encounter designers would put a whole bunch of ~~ice~~ frost giants in really close proximity to each other at this level… right? Right.

Leader of Men! (and elves and genasi and soulless robots)

From where they are standing on the corpse of the recently slain ~~ice~~ frost giant, they can just make out two more giants through the snow. One is to the north, next to the inn, and another to the west.

Clay must have made a save against psychic influences because he is reluctantly persuaded to stand down and let everyone sneak up on the next victim.

Clay> As I don’t know what’s there I will wait for Abelas to lead us into battle against the chosen frost giant!

So for the second time this session we have narrowly avoided the players doing something spectacularly fucking stupid and incredibly fucking rash and so we drop out of combat and Dasharra flies up and scouts ahead. She reports two ~~ice~~ frost giants to the west, not one, and yet further west are two more. However, that pair are fighting each other and one of them is wearing a white dragon skull as a helmet!

See? Just a little patience.

And now I have Guns and Roses stuck in my head.

Abelas> We should be making our way toward the friendly giant.
Regulus> ‘friendly’ is possibly…
Abelas> Well, he might not kill us on sight and he kills other frost giants so if we kill the other frost giant he might be more friendly.
Celdar> But he kills them for sport and if we kill his sport we might piss him off.
Abelas> Well we could go and see if he needs a hand!

So in a remarkably short space of time and yet still covering a remarkable number of non-issues, we had a plan! They are going to go kill the nearby two ~~ice~~ frost giants and then go see if Harshnag needs a hand.

Surprise Mother<expletive deleted>s!

The DM names the two ~~ice~~ frost giants Bill and Bob. He would have gone with Bill and Ben but only Mike would have gotten it and then he would have had to explain it and then he and Mike would have felt really, really old <sigh>.

Weeeed!

Sneaking into position is done and then Mikevira kicks things off by blinding Bob.

Celdar makes his third attempt of the session to hit something and actually manages it for a change. Quite remarkable. He still managed to fuck it up, obviously:

<Celdar puts together his dice pool for the roll>
Celdar> Oh shit, I rolled too many… there’s two d8s in this, my bad…
DM> Just ignore one.
Celdar> Okay..
DM> We’ll just ignore the first one… <Celdar rolls a 3 & 8> We’ll just ignore the second one…

The DM chose… poorly.

Regulus attacks the surprised and blinded Bob with advantage and rolls two natural twenties! They still only count as one crit though.

Clay unleashes the Giantslayer once more, also against the blind, taunted Bob who now becomes the blinded, taunted, prone Bob. Oh, he also crits Bob because maybe Karma was feeling a tad guilty about what she did to Matt last week.

In the following exchange, I simply can’t do the timing and tone of voice of Jake’s first comment justice but it rendered Mike momentarily speechless:

Matt> So that’s 33 damage…
DM> Thirty fucking three?! <sigh> I’m not doubting you, but can you explain to me where all that comes from? I need to get it right in my head.
<Matt gently reminds the DM that the Giantslayer does bonus damage and the crit applies to that as well>
DM> Oh yep, cool!
Mike> So the Giantslayer does an extra 2d6 damage? Nice.
Jake> To giants.
Mike> Ye… I… obv… <sigh>
<hysterical laughter>
Jake> Just in case you weren’t aware!
DM> <Announcer voice> Aaaand today’s Stating the Blindingly Obvious prize goes to… Abelaaaaas!
Jake> My robot friend..
DM> “soulless” robot friend…
Jake> My soulless robot friend sometimes retains weird information and sometimes gets things wrong!

It’s the giants turn and the DM gets Bob back on his feet and turns him to attack the soulless robot:

Soulless Robot> Er.. Gary, is he still surprised?
DM> I thought we had the surprise round?
Everyone> No, it’s still the first round.
DM> <sigh> Oh for…
<Bob executes the surprise emote and turns back around>

Abelas moves into spell range:

Abelas> I will cast another Firebolt… at Bob!
DM> What did Bob ever do to you?
<Abelas rolls an 18>
Regulus> <with utter weariness> With advantage…
Abelas> <cheerily> Oh yeah! Thank you Mike!
<laughter, Abelas rolls a 7>
Abelas> Screw you Mike!
<more laughter>

Abelas does exactly the amount of damage he needed to take down poor Bob who never did anything to anyone… if you discount the odd bit of pillage and murder here and there.

Sirac casts Faerie Fire on Bill giving everyone advantage against him so he will be incredibly easy to hit right? Right.

Dice are still Chaotic Evil

DM> So Bill is on minus 42, is blind and yet gleaming. Celdar? Can you miss something that is 30ft tall and basically on fire?
Celdar> Challenge accepted! Longbow shot…
<He misses>
<Suppressed laughter>
Celdar> <deeply depressed> Yes, yes I can miss it <sigh>.
Mike> That’s incredible!
Celdar> <laughing> Like… fuck this game sometimes.
Matt> And still you’re having a better week than I did last week!
DM> Yeah, we’ve been doing this a long time, it’s not D&D it’s dice. Dice are agents of chaos.
Jake> Random chance can go fuck itself.
DM> The Lords of Probability are hiding under the table.

Anyone who says “You make your own luck” has clearly never played D&D or cards for money.

There was now a discussion on whether Bill, being a rather tall ~~ice~~ frost giant, blinded to anything further than 5ft, can see his ‘gentleman sausage’ or not.

I don’t think I need to say any more about that.

Clay asked what the flanking bonus was but while he was asking it there was background noise that reconfirmed the DM’s long held lack of regret for not having had children.

Bill got two attacks off against Regulus, the highest was a 26 (17+9). Regulus shielded and got 27 AC so Bill missed. The DM is starting to have serious misgivings about this now.

When a CR8 creature, that is supposed to be a challenge to an entire group of level 8 adventurers (and Jake), gets taunted at the threat of disadvantage by merely being hit, and then has to roll an 18 just to hit the taunter… it is trivialising a big chunk of content.

Now Mike is just making the most out of the way the game is designed and there are counters but they would involve the DM completely redesigning every combat encounter around one player. I’m not entirely certain what the consequences of that are… but we’re gonna find out! Bwahahahahahah!

Speaking of ridiculously overpowered:

Harshnag the Grim

The deputies (and Mike) approach the two battling ~~ice~~ frost giants on the west side of town. Harshnag is rather bigger than a typical frost giant and he is wearing plate armour. He is also wielding a very large axe.

As the party approaches, Harshnag cleaves the opposing giant in half and calls out to the nearby gnome civilians “Begone little folk! This is not the place for you right now”. He then turns and walk over to the group, squints down at them and levels his axe at each in turn “Ah, the mighty Clay who fights nearly naked! Mistress Elvira, sharpshooter extraordinaire! And you must be Mister Regoolas, the famous wagon maker! And Abelarse, the one who falls off the wagon!” He looks at Celdar and says “I don’t know you” and then to everyone “I hear you have been looking for me?”

The DM let them all flounder about for a while trying to remember what exactly the main quest was that the fate of the entire world rested upon. You know, the one that has been at the start of every write up since episode 6 and we are now on episode 34 <sigh>

Abelarse> Eye of the All Father feels…
Mister Regoolas> Yes! That was it, we seek a guide to the Eye of the All-Father to help dealing with the Ordning!
Harshnag> <laying bait> Who told you to find me?
Mister Regoolas> <taking bait> Er.. I thought Claugiyliamater told us…
Harshnag> You know her name?!
<laughter>
Harshnag> You must be the chosen one!
Mister Regoolas> <laughing> I have heard that before yes!
DM> He kneels down and whispers… a whisper than can probably be heard a mile away, “Chazluath is a bit of a dick isn’t he?”
Mister Regoolas> Yes, yes he is!
Harshnag> But he is very good at what he does.

Harshnag is quite willing to guide the adventurers (and Jake) to The Eye of the All-Father but he has an urgent mission in Waterdeep and has to go there first. First though, the town must be cleared of ~~ice~~ frost giants.

DM> Right then, Harshnag has joined your party!
<cheers>
DM> Matt…
<laughter>
Mike> Aren’t you glad Matt that you didn’t take Joffrey?

Actually, it wouldn’t have mattered because we chose to end it there.

Harshnag’s stats and the details on his axe are in post session guff.

End of Session.

Next time on Ten-foot Squares:

– What dastardly plan will the DM come up with to counter Mr 27AC?
– Will Matt manage to get Harshang killed and doom the world?
– Will Celdar bother to hit anything?
– What blindingly obvious fact will Abelarse inform the others of?

Tune in next week to find out!

Post Session Guff

Harshnag

21AC, 254HP*, Speed 40ft.

Melee – Two axe attacks at +11 to-hit for 26 slashing damage each (39 against humans (like Joffrey))

Ranged – One boulder throw (60/240) at +11 to-hit for 35 damage. Has advantage against Druids who have cast Tidal Wave within the last turn.

As an action, Harshnag can cast a version of the heat metal spell (save DC 13) that deals cold damage instead of fire damage. Once this power is used, it can’t be used again until the next dawn.

*Harshnag’s hit points and ranged damage have been increased because the DM has tinkered somewhat with the campaign levelling.

Gurt’s Greataxe

Weapon (greataxe), legendary (requires attunement)

In the Year of the Icy Axe (123 DR), the frost giant lord Gurt fell to Uthgar Gardolfsson—leader of the folk who would become the Uthgardt barbarians—in a battle that marked the ascendance of humankind over the giants in the Dessarin Valley. Gurt’s greataxe was buried in Morgur’s Mound until it was unearthed and brought back to Waterdeep. After laying in the city’s vaults for decades, the axe was given to Harshnag, a frost giant adventurer, in recognition of his service to Waterdeep. Uthgardt barbarians recognize the weapon on sight and attack any giant that wields it.

You gain a +1 bonus to attack and damage rolls made with this magic weapon. It is sized for a giant, weighs 325 pounds, and deals 3d12 slashing damage on a hit, plus an extra 2d12 slashing damage if the target is human.

The axe sheds light as a torch when the temperature around it drops below 0 degrees Fahrenheit. The light can’t be shut off in these conditions.

As an action, you can cast a version of the heat metal spell (save DC 13) that deals cold damage instead of fire damage. Once this power is used, it can’t be used again until the next dawn.